But there are some who have been told they did not even qualify for compensation because they were not kept as "comfort women".

Lita Vinuya and her childhood friend Pilar Galang were among 80 women and girls – some as young as 11 – from Mapanique, a village 150km north of Manila, who were systematically raped in the Red House, the local Japanese army headquarters during the war.

Lita said she still remembers the room where Japanese soldiers raped five girls, including her, in the Red House.

The women have also written songs to remind the world of the "blackest night" of their lives.

No forgiveness

Lita, right, and Galang say that night was the"blackest night" of their lives

Despite receiving "atonement" money from mostly private groups, the Filipino sex slaves want justice directly from the Japanese government, as well as for their stories to be noted as fact in history books.

Shinzo Abe, the Japanese prime minister, provoked a furore in Asian nations in March when he denied that comfort women were forced into sexual slavery "in the strict sense of coercion".

Abe has said he stands by Japan's landmark 1993 apology to the women and last month stressed his sympathy for Asian women driven into brothels by Japan's military.

Historians say up to 200,000 young women, mostly from Korea but also from China, Indonesia, the Philippines and Taiwan, were forced to serve as sex slaves in Japanese army brothels.